


Like the Rain

by Tammany



Series: Kiss You When You Start Your Day [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Generous Lover, Giving, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 04:29:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14324598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: I found I wanted to carry on with the scenario laid out in "Soft and Warm Continuing," and see what Mycroft would do and what Greg would do. This one is explicit, as the other was not.I hope you like it. The title is again from "Kathy's Song," and old Paul Simon classic."And as I watch the drops of rainWeave their weary paths and dieI know that I am like the rain,There but for the grace of you go I."If Greg is handicapped by what he does not know, and the uncertainties of his mid-life crisis, Mycroft is as handicapped by what he does know...all the ways this is unwise, and all the ways he loves Greg beyond wisdom.





	Like the Rain

It is night.

Mycroft had brought Greg Lestrade home…his own home, the family estate in Buckinghamshire. Home to his heart-home (or as near as can be, with lost Musgrave burned down decades before, leaving only memories of a life ever more complicated and unhappy—and the faint sense-memory of honey on scones for tea…)

So here they are, he thought, mind racing down list after list of things he could have done, should have done, might have done differently. He wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing, and this, of many-many things he has wanted to do right, rates very close to the top of the list.

The Inspector—DCI Lestrade—Greg—had been failing for weeks, falling into lethargy, radiating a dense depression so thick it could be sliced. The reasons were many, some obvious even to Mycroft, who recognized his own shortcomings when trying to evaluate quixotic human responses. His divorce, several years past, now, but never far from Lestrade’s self-awareness. His career—no, careers. Mycroft had been aware of Greg’s increasing uncertainty as he reached the point in both his Met position and his MI5 work where the work shifts from hands-on work to management and bureaucracy. It was what had, at one time, been called the Peter Principle—Lestrade’s reward for being a brilliant hands-on detective and agent was to be shifted, a move at a time, into paper-pushing and minion-bothering. The near-inevitable isolation that seems to come with middle-age, as you begin to lose old friends through career moves, marriages, death, or even just mismatched maturity. Many a former lad has found himself cast adrift when he finds that ruggers and beer and brawling are just no longer enough to bind him to his boyhood associates.

Mycroft, watching, had worried, as his…subordinate? Colleague?

Partner…

He had worried as his partner lost his energy, his joy, his focus. That night, seeing a rare chance to open the door to dialog, he had gambled, and commanded the chauffeur who drove them to and from the late-night meeting they had that evening, to drive them home “the long way.” As long a way as it took, through the wet streets of London.

It had worked in ways Mycroft had not dared imagine, leading in directions Mycroft had never risked hoping for.

“I should not be doing this,” he thought. Sex was never the answer, he thought. It wasn’t just that caring wasn’t an advantage—though it wasn’t. Sex was never the easy cure so many people seemed to think it was. So many movies, so many books, he thought, and the answer to sorrow or pain or grief or fear was to fuck the right person. Not even someone who you knew loved you—who you knew you loved. The lies people told themselves insisted that, in the face of the hurt, the orgasm would make it all come round right.

But—if it was sex with someone you knew you wanted? Because, rules or no rules, limits or now limits, you cared? Couldn’t it be the right thing to do? The right way to go?

His hands shook as he opened the bottle of Redbreast whisky he had set aside for cold, wet nights like this. He’d already lit the fireplace, piling up old apple and oak logs harvested from the estate itself—trees that needed culling from the orchard and the home wood.

He’d felt Lestrade move in his arms in the car, shaking, hesitant, his lips touching with a delicacy Mycroft had never expected. He’d smelled the other man, the wet wool of his coat, the scent of some common brand of soap, of cheap aftershave, and under all that the scent of a warm human man—skin and sweat and saliva, the scent of breath moving in and out of lungs, and under his fingers the double-drum of Lestrade’s pulse, and he’d wanted…

Oh, God, he’d wanted. So much. The erection hurt, he wanted the other man so badly. His balls had pulled up, and his back had tightened and he’d had to fight not to come in his own pants.

He should not have brought Lestrade to his own home, he thought. It made it too easy to want him in his own bed. To keep him in his own life.

He walked across the little octagonal room that lay at the base of one of several Vicorian-era towers added to the main building by a fanciful and romantic-minded ancestor in the mid-1800s. Lestrade, sprawled in a big Arts and Crafts sofa by the fire, accepted the glass of Redbreast Mycroft offered him.

He was beautiful in the firelight, his white hair turned copper by the flames, his dark eyes seeming like embers, his mouth showing the perfect artistry of classic lips chiseled into curves and points that would have made a Greek sculptor weep with envy. He had always been the most beautiful man Mycroft knew—beautiful in body and in spirit.

“You can have the rooms above this,” Mycroft said. “The suite was formerly assigned to the estate manager. There’s a bedroom, a bath with a loo and a big claw-foot tub, a living room just like this, but with one wall set up as a bare-basics kitchen. I have the staff stock it with basics, in case I have someone stay over.”

“Thanks,” Lestrade said, and sipped at the glass of Redbreast. “God. Good stuff, this.”

“Quite.”

Mycroft settled himself in a nearby chair of heavy, carved oak, all pseudo-medieval, reeking of Morris and Burne-Jones. He was still shaking, he thought, seeing the quiver of light on his whisky. How could he want so much—so deeply—so quickly?

Not that it was quick. It was years in the making…a good decade and a half. All the years he had followed his own highest standards, not attempting to take by force, or seduction, by opportunism or manipulation. Fifteen years of thinking Lestrade might be happier with a man that with that wife of his. Fifteen years of thinking how…tempting...

How remarkable…

How longed-for the other man was.

A gentleman does not seduce his colleagues. He does not fish off the departmental wharf, or bed his associates. He most certainly does not do so when he knows himself to be a bit of a cold fish, a user, uneasy with his own feelings and more than uneasy with other people’s.

But tonight—

“Why don’t you come over here?” Greg said, rolling the big round old-fashioned glass between his palms, warming the whisky. His voice left no doubt of what he was suggesting—that they pick up where they’d left off in the car…Mycroft’s hand seeking under Lestrade’s now-discarded overcoat, touching the planes of his back, the curves of his pectorals, seeking the strength of his waist—no longer boyishly slim, but with muscle supporting his every move. Lestrade’s hands seeking likewise, finding the curve of shoulder that led to Mycroft’s long giraffe neck, tickling in the turn of muscle, seeking response.

“I over-stepped,” Mycroft said, hearing the misery he had hoped to conceal. “I—allowed desire to get the best of me, rather than kindness or wisdom.” He took a short, fierce drink, feeling the liquor burn its way from mouth to throat to chest to belly. “A gentleman does not fuck his associates.”

Lestrade gave a sudden, strangled grunt of laughter. “Who the hell does he fuck, then? Strangers passing in the night?”

“Sex is never a solution,” Mycroft said, ignoring the laughter, bearing in on his own error. “You trusted me with your loneliness. I…trespassed. I…You are a beautiful man, and a valued compatriot. I am afraid I let myself forget. For a moment. But…”

Lestrade snorted, then, voice amused and frustrated at once. “’Sex is never a solution’? Really? Seems like the perfect solution to ‘I don’t know if I want sex or not.’ It’s not like I can guess without trying, you know.” His voice shifted from frustration to teasing seduction. “I kind of liked where it was going, sunshine. Felt—right.”

“I took advantage. I owe you better.” Owed him everything—owed all a man could owe someone he cared for…

“You don’t owe me anything, Mycroft,” Lestrade grumbled. “Or—if you do, it’s to make up for the hard-on that’s still filling my trousers.” He shimmied down to the very corner of the sofa and patted the supple, cared-for, aged leather of the upholstery. “Really, love. Come show me more. Teach me.”

His voice was warm, deep, purring with desire, humble in his request.

“I shouldn’t.” He knew he shouldn’t…

“Both of age, sunshine. Both experienced enough to know what’s involved. Peers, not me or you the boss of the other. We can make it fly. And…” Lestrade took a shaky breath, and continued, “I want you, love. I want what you offered: to show me what it can be now, teach me what it could be like now I’m not a lad having one off in the alley behind a club. Find out what it’s like to make love to another man, not just shag whatever comes calling. I want to learn what it’s like to shag a man I love.”

The phrasing, the inflection were careful, promising no more love than the love of long-association, of close partnership, of practiced friendship. But that much it did promise, and Mycroft felt it rip his inner soul like a swallowed hook rips the belly of a fish. He wanted.

Oh, God, he wanted—and what he wanted most was to teach this beautiful man, this old friend, this cherished person that sex could be joy. A lesson he himself had to take on faith…

“I shouldn’t,” he said again, but he said it as he rose, set aside his glass of Redbreast, and crossed in front of the burning fire, and settled on the sofa, curling close, slipping an arm around Lestrade’s shoulders, giving a little tug to draw the other man’s head near.

“Let’s say you should,” Lestrade murmured. “ _I_ think you should.” He let his lips meet Mycroft’s, brushing close, exploring, nuzzling the other man’s face. “Show me how it goes again…”

Outside the rain still fell, a soft, rich sound. Inside the fire snapped and crackled, louder even than usual as the stray raindrop made it down the chimney to land on the burning logs. The night, the mansion, the entire estate, the storm, all England seemed to wrap around them, cradling them in a noisy silence, filled with rain and fire, of sudden gasps and murmurs, but empty of clamor and conflict.

Lestrade—Greg—leaned back, shoved cushions behind his head, squiched his buttocks down the smooth leather of the sofa, drawing Mycroft down over him as though the other man were a warm, comforting duvet. He wrapped Mycroft’s arms around his own chest, and sighed happily. “That’s it. Feels good…”

“I’m not too heavy?”

“Not.” Greg gave a quiet micro-chuckle. “Did you know they make weighted blankets for people suffering stress or shock or depression? Truth. Apparently the weight comforts you.” He wrapped his arms around Mycroft and buried his face against Mycroft’s collar bones. “Feel…anchored. Safe.” Then, with a wicked squeeze, he said, “Sexy. Makes me feel sexy.” The stir of a rising erection confirmed his statement, pressing in between Mycroft’s thighs.

Sex was never the answer, Mycroft thought. Execpt sometimes it had to be the answer, didn’t it? If the question was, what should you do with the one man you’ve loved for years, when he suggests he wants sex from you? Shouldn’t the answer, then, be to oblige?

There was so much he wanted to do for and to Greg Lestrade. So much to try to make sure he enjoyed properly, if only once in his life. And to enjoy things properly, they ought to be naked. And in bed. With the proper lube on hand, and condoms, and maybe even a few sex toys? Something better than snogging on the sofa.

“Do you really want this?”

Greg gave a whole-body shrug. “Think so. Told you though—don’t know so. Haven’t… I never…” He gave a wry laugh, embarrassment mixing with raw amusement. “Never made love to another man. Fucked a few back in the day. But never…this. Never anyone who mattered much. And even with women—it’s different. Don’t know what I’ll like, do I? Don’t know if I’ll love it—or panic halfway through. Wish I could promise more. Can’t.”

Mycroft kissed a tender line along Lestrade’s cheekbone, feeling the faintest trace of tears. “Shhh. It’s all right.” It had to be all right, he thought, though he knew it would kill him if halfway through the only real attempt he’d ever made to love someone properly he was called off, sent into exile, denied the happy ending. “It’s all right. Look, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it properly. Up in my room I’ve got the basics. I can take care of you better, there. It’s more private. And sheets are better than antique leather for screwing on. Here—come along.” He rose and took Greg’s hand, tugging gently.

“Only if you bring along that nice booze,” Greg said, laughing under his breath. “That’s good stuff.”

Mycroft smiled and collected the bottle of Redbreast. “We’ll have to use the toothbrush glasses upstairs, though.”

“A catastrophe…. Not.” Lestrade followed Mycroft through the dim room, up the wide oak stairway that branched in wide wings and came together on landings, all trimmed with carved pierce-work panels and punctuated with fancy balusters. One high flight up, one wing over, and then they were in Mycroft’s own room. Mycroft put the Redbreast on his dresser, then said, softly, “Let me help you out of those damp clothes.”

The clothes were barely damp at all, almost untouched by rain. That didn’t stop Mycroft seeking the buttons of Greg’s shirt. He took his time, opening one button after another. Then he let just the tips of his finger seek beneath the parted cotton plackets, finding skin, the faint trace of chest hair, the curve of strong muscle. He sighed his own contentment, let his entire hands glide into Greg’s shirt, eased the fabric back, away from Greg’s shoulders, down his arms, slipping out long enough to unbutton cuffs and then set his lover free of the shirt entirely. He came close and hugged him, exploring the sensation.

Greg was shorter than he was, and slightly more stocky—broader of shoulder and wider of chest, more solid-boned and muscular. The two facts set off conflicting feelings of desire, as he felt larger, more powerful, protective in his height—smaller, more delicate, more fragile in his gangly length and lack of muscle. Both were erotic. The conflict was even more so.

He shivered with it, and pressed his face against Greg’s hair. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“And if I disagree?”

He fought back too many feelings, pulled Greg close. Then he said, shivering at his own honesty, “I shouldn’t. Greg, I—This isn’t right. I’ve…I’ve wanted to do this for too long. It’s not right taking advantage of your depression. Makes it too easy to lie to myself, pretend I’m being generous, helping you when…” He couldn’t let go, couldn’t turn his face away from the feathery brush of Greg’s hair, couldn’t stop the hunger that rose being so close at last. “I didn’t plan to do this tonight. I just wanted to help. It’s not right to…”

“Shhhhh….” Greg’s hand came up, his square, workmanlike palm cupping Mycroft’s skull. “Shhh…’Sall-right, sunshine. It’s all right.” He stroked Mycroft’s head, his skin warm over bare scalp and thinning hair. “Hush, now. I know you’re not just taking a chance to get a leg over.” He laughed, then, face brushing against Mycroft’s ear. “Not your style, eh? But you don’t have to be a saint, Mike. If it’s wha’ I want, what’s the harm? I’m just sorry I didn’t know you were interested…”

Mycroft gave a laughing moan. “Putting it mildly.” He rocked his erection, iron-hard, against Greg’s hip. “You have no idea.”

“I’d ask why you never said, but really, no need,” Greg said, his hands beginning to explore even as he kept talking. “I know you too well to think you’d step out of that shell if you had any doubts, normally. But, Mike, I’m serious—was serious. I’m lonely. And even if I don’t know if this is the right answer, I do know it’s an answer I want to give a try. If you can cope with that…”

Mycroft wasn’t sure he could. If the answer became “no” it was going to hurt so much. But now was not the time to burden Greg with his own fears and insecurity. “Coping is my speciality,” he said, in the wry knowledge that this was truth. “Here—let’s get the rest of you naked.”

They undressed each other—gently, with curiosity and tenderness. The room was dark, lit only by ambient night glow from the big wall of windows—all leaded glass panes. In the storm only the least shine and gleam came through.

Mycroft wanted so much to make it all good for Greg. Not just because he didn’t think he could bear being told to stop—though there was that. But his lover had been so sad, lately—so lost. Once, just once, he wanted sex to be the answer to something, to chase away Greg’s sorrow and loneliness and fill it with wild desire and contentment, with the sense of being precious and exciting to someone, of being worth being made love to—slowly, properly, with dedicated commitment, for the night if not for eternity.

He took charge, trying to follow Greg’s cues while relieving his lover of the need to think or plan. He kissed, not as he knew how to kiss, but the way he could imagine kissing could be. He exceeded his own limits. He transcended his own boundaries. This was not about his own insecurity. It was about Greg’s lonely need. It was about showing him sex with a man could be more than a fast fuck in the alley behind an old terraced shop. His fingers traced the lines of his lover’s body, sought reactions, lingered when he found them.

He lay Greg out in the cool linen sheets of his ancient bed. He piled pillows to support him. He suckled his teats, palmed his cock and balls, explored his arsehole with tentative strokes. He found the lubricant and spread it lightly, then slipped probing fingers in, stretching tight skin and probing for nerve clusters.

Greg’s breath was so deep—so oceanic, the in and out like surf on cobbles, a poetry of desire.

“You like this?” Mycroft asked, again and again, determined to do nothing Greg didn’t want, didn’t enjoy.

“Ohhhh. Yes. Yes—go on. Please—go on.”

Mycroft knew what it could be, even though he’d never had all it could be himself. But he knew from years of touching himself, imagining possibilities, putting it all together with his rare actual events. He wanted Greg to get the best of all it could be.

“Do you want me to—“ he pushed, the head of his cock knocking at Greg’s back door.

“Yes. Please, yes.”

He slipped a condom on, checked the lube. “It’s best if it stretches just a bit too fast—hurts just a bit before it settles. Push out—your body’s ready for something big to come through if you push out just a bit. Not enough to—you know. But enough to tell your body something’s on the way through. Is that all right?”

“Nnnng…Mike, please. I’m…Please.”

He pushed again, finding the giving-point, feeling muscles open as he slipped firm inside, the lube letting him slide against the resistance. The pleasure was beyond anything he’d imagined—his cock was sensitive beyond belief from fifteen years of wanting, from hours of petting and play, from his own desire breaking out like wildfire leaping a ditch. In, and in, and in, until there was no more in and his hips jerked back…

And Greg was moaning, his own hips flexing, trying to let Mycroft in deeper, trying to make it all harder, faster, wilder. Between them they set a pace that turned fierce. They’d twitch so hard Mycroft popped out entirely, only to surge back in to Greg’s groans and pleas. The sweat rose high on their bodies, slick and hot, stinging.

He loved this man, Mycroft thought. God help him, he loved this man—had loved him for far too long. What would he do if this was all Greg wanted? A night with a lover he trusted to show him a bit of what it could be? How would he live if this was the only night? The only chance?

He knew, though. If Greg left Holmescroft with the old, jaunty spring in his step, the mischief in his eyes again, that had been fading for far too long, if his friend and partner was happy and cocky and pleased again, then he’d swallow his own disappointment, and celebrate Greg’s revival. And if, on occasion, he drank a bit too much and cried into his pillows, well…

He’d always known caring wasn’t an advantage. He was good at surviving the cost.

Once, twice, three times he delayed Greg’s orgasm, slowing his drive, pinching the other man’s cock at the base, using voice to call him back from the edge. Only when he began to doubt his own ability to maintain an erection one second longer if he didn’t let his own desire through, did he give in.

“Get ready, love,” he whispered, slipping his arms under the small of Greg’s back, angling his hips into the roll of their love-making. He made sure Greg’s cock rolled and slid over his own belly, listened as Greg wailed and fell into orgasm.

In and in and in, until there was no more in and only out. Once. Twice. Three times—then he was wailing, too, sunk in as deep as he could and his hips juddering reflexively, planting seed as deep as possible. The scent of Greg’s semen rose from between them, sharp and musky, the skin of their bellies slapping and clapping as they both finished in gasping awe. At the end Mycroft fell over his lover, fingers looking for damp hair to comb through, mouth stirring over a face wet with sweat and tears.

They sucked air, gasped, huffed, like beached fish, gills gaping.

“Oh, love,” Greg whispered at last. “Oh, sunshine. That was….”

“Mmm.”

Laughter bounced Mycroft, Greg’s strong stomach and chest surging as he chuckled. “Yeah. ‘Mmmmm.’ That was ‘mmmm.’”

“Better than a quick shag behind a club?”

“Much better, yeah.” Arms wrapped around Mycroft, who fought to resist the thought that this might last—that it might be forever.

He made himself play fair—be the gentleman. “Greg—you should know. I’m…I’m afraid I’m a bit infatuated with you. Have been for a long time. But—there’s no obligation. I’m glad I could show you…”

Beneath him Greg sniggered. “You silly old thing. Come here, sunshine.” He hugged him close. “Shhhh. No idea what is coming from all this—I don’t know. But you don’t have to apologize for caring about me, eh?” His voice shook suddenly, breaking with his own emotion. “Been a long time since anyone made love to me, Mike—or I made love back. It was good. It was really good.”

Mycroft smiled to himself and pillowed his face on Greg’s shoulder. “And how do you feel, now?”

“Stretched. Sore in a good way. Run off my legs, and clean and hollow inside, like a bright day in autumn. Good.” Greg’s fingers found Mycroft’s last, vain curl of forelock, and stroked it, wrapping the long strand around one finger. “Good.” His smile was audible. “Loved. And you?”

Mycroft wanted to say he felt loved, too—but didn’t dare risk it yet. Not yet.

“Right,” he said. “I feel right.”

And he kissed his lover quietly, absently, until they both fell asleep.

By then it was no longer night.


End file.
